The Spanish scientific community has redoubled pressure on the Ministry of Social Security to rectify its decision to force researchers who wish to recover, as years of contributions, the periods worked with precarious scholarships in the past to pay around 290 euros per month. The physicist Perla Wahnón, president of the Confederation of Scientific Societies of Spain (COSCE), met this afternoon with Minister Elma Saiz in a first contact. According to the Ministry, “the minister has conveyed her personal commitment to review the order.”
The measure, announced on April 30, implies that researchers would have to pay up to 17,000 euros to the General Treasury of Social Security to recover a maximum of five years and be able to retire before the age of 70. Hundreds of people affected, grouped on the platform Former Research and Teaching Fellows (ABID), consider their situation “a historical injustice”. They report that they worked, especially before 2011, combining predoctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, without the entities, mainly in the public sector, contributing to Social Security for them.
The COSCE, which represents 88 scientific societies and some 40,000 researchers, has welcomed in a statement the Ministry’s willingness to introduce improvements. “It is necessary to find a specific solution to recognize all the time worked as research fellows, since it is a different situation from training practices,” the organization has stressed. “It is a matter of social justice that our demands are addressed.”
Many scientists have been publishing their complaints on social networks for two weeks, such as the microbiologist Ignacio López Goñi, professor at the University of Navarra. “This is how science was done in Spain: we were not internship students, it was covert work without a contract and without paying into Social Security,” lament this Monday. The Science Law of 2011, approved during the Government of the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, finally changed research grants for contracts with contributions.
The affected platform has called a concentration for next Saturday at noon, at the door of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, in Madrid. The investigators demand “a fair special agreement” to replace the announced conditions, which they consider a “scam.” The endocrinologist Fair Chestnut, professor at the University of Córdoba, is another of those affected. “I was a predoctoral researcher between 1989 and 1993. This job was called being a scholarship holder, with almost no rights, no contributions. They ask that we pay what the State did not pay: It is unfair!” has criticized on social network X.
The Ministry has opened itself to introducing modifications and has taken the matter to the social dialogue table with union and business organizations, as reported on Monday by the Secretary of State for Social Security and Pensions, Borja Suárez. “What we are going to do is listen to everyone and, if necessary, take additional measures,” he declared. The affected demand eliminate the “arbitrary limit” of five years, an economic reduction — the new agreement uses the minimum contribution base for retirement of the 2024 regime, instead of using the one in force in the year of the scholarship — and not having to pay out of his pocket the employer’s contribution that would have corresponded to the entities that benefited from their work without contributing for them.
The Federation of Young Precarious Researchers was key in the fight to convert scholarships into contracts. “For years, research staff at public universities and affiliated centers were carrying out teaching and research work without paying contributions, with all the consequences and precariousness that this implies. Among them, having zero days worked for different social benefits, such as retirement,” he noted this Tuesday. it’s a statement. “The exorbitant price that has been stipulated (290 euros per month) is unacceptable and, above all, that it is the workers themselves, instead of the financing organizations and institutions, who are responsible for these costs. We are talking about 17,000 euros to be able to access this right, currently guaranteed,” the federation denounced.
The biologist Marisol Soengas, president of the Spanish Cancer Research Association (ASEICA), explains that representatives of 10 other entities will meet on Friday with the Secretary of State Borja Suárez, one day before the concentration called at the door of the Ministry . ASEICA and three other organizations—the National Association of Hospital Researchers, the Spanish Society of Neuroscience, and the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology— they demanded on May 6 the rectification of the ministerial order, which in his opinion “has unleashed anger among the scientific community.” Five other entities have since joined their protest: the Royal Spanish Society of Physics, the Spanish Society of Genetics, the Spanish Association of Astronomy, the General Council of Official Colleges of Biologists and the Spanish Society of Microbiology.
You can follow SUBJECT in Facebook, x and instagramor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#Scientists #redouble #pressure #avoid #pay #euros #retire